Alternative Captions and the Holidays

Many years ago, when I first visited my future in-laws over the holidays, I saw that they had set up a small crèche as one of their holiday decorations. I may (or may not) have scandalized them by remarking, “It looks like they’re all saying to each other, ‘I’m not going to change Him; are you?’’’

In any case, flash forward some three decades and I thought that I might attempt a Nativity scene for my sometimes-annual, always-badly-drawn (for I know no other way to draw) holiday card. For its caption I came up with a related baby Jesus poopoo joke, “Gold, frankincense, myrrh…but nobody brought Pampers?” After a few hours work, it was completed.

And then I thought of an edgier caption. Poopoo jokes are always comedy gold, but given our divisive times, this is the caption with which I finally went:

Holiday card 2021 captioned "He doesn't LOOK Jewish!"However (and it seems there’s always a “however” in comedy) my pointing out the baby Jesus’ religion made me realize that at the Nativity He was just a few short days from His bris, and that led me to this:

alternative Holiday card captioned "I'm just here for the circumcision."

And, if you think that is a far-fetched reason for one of the Three Kings to “traverse afar” to attend the Nativity, you ain’t never heard of the Holy Prepuce!

It happened again…

Every so often I’ll draw a cartoon and then, a few days or even a few months later, I’ll see that some professional cartoonist has done something that seems very similar to the gag in my drawing. It’s happened again, this time with the comic strip “Six Chix.”

I drew this cartoon using a caption I thought of a month or so back, and I posted it on my Twitter feed and Facebook timeline on October 2: Disappointed princess

Today I saw this cartoon in the Washington Post, attributed to Isabella Bannerman, Margaret Shulock, Rina Piccolo, Anne Gibbons, Benita Epstein, and Stephanie Piro:

Six Chix inspired by me?

Not quite the same gag, but close enough to make me wonder if any of the artists involved have been following me on Twitter or Facebook.

Coincidence, or the sincerest form of flattery?